Specials
Category
City: From home of microbes to coronavirus hotspot
– Xenia Kokoula, TU Berlin
Street, sidewalk, façade: What makes this picture instantly recognizable as a late 19th century urban setting is not its architecture but rather the crowds …
Corona and its spatial metaphors
– Paul Bostanjoglo, TU Berlin
COVID-19 spreads best in enclosed and crowded rooms; according to this many potentially dangerous spaces have been detected. In case of outbreaks …
Rethinking urban food systems in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic
– Yuanzhihong Liu, TU Berlin
During the COVID-19 pandemic we have seen several outbreaks related to the urban food supply system. The first known outbreak took place in a big f…
Viruses, particles, and other matters in metropolitan Milan
– Chiara Galimberti, TU Berlin
During the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic the Metropolitan City of Milan was Italy’s most affected urban area. While people had to wear a mask …
Essential workers, caring, space and COVID-19 in Buenos Aires, Argentina
– Mayra Luciana Diaz, TU Berlin
As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic during the first few months of 2020 different countries and cities of the world saw their commercial …
Exposing the inequalities faced by Mumbai’s ‘informal’ residents
– Sima Bhattarai, TU Berlin
Throughout the world, public health measures of maintaining proper hygiene, physical distancing and self-isolation have been implemented to contain …
From the “disease of the rich” to the “disease of the poor”: Inequality, social perception and COVID-19 in Buenos Aires, Argentina
– Ana Villasenin, TU Berlin
During the COVID-19 pandemic social and economic inequalities have become both more visible and more polarized, which can be seen in the different …
Multi-species coexistence, COVID-19 & urban design
– Johanna Schacht and Philine von Zimmermann, TU Berlin
It remains unknown what species caused the spread of COVID-19, and where exactly it was transmitted from non-humans to humans in Wuhan, China, which …
Ramadan in corona times
– from Safa Ashoub, Berlin, 07.05.2020
Berlin – March 23rd
At the peak of Covid-19 … food shops are offering free products due to closure, disinfectants are triple the price, U-Bahns …
Shifting in place
– from Camilla Lade, Vancouver, 07.05.2020
The city is quieter, the birds are chirping, and the streets are clear of cars. As our government aims to increase sidewalk widths through ‘tactica…
Post-pandemic design and well-being
– from Kevin Bennett, Pittsburgh, 10.05.2020
This is a photo of a sensational rainbow that flashed before my eyes on a recent run to fetch some food and supplies. Unexpected and gone-too-soon,…
Borderland: Drift interrupted
– from Patrick Düblin, Basel, 11.05.2020
A stone’s throw away from my apartment lies the river Rhine. It naturally parts Switzerland and France from Germany. The city of Basel, however, ex…
The local retreat
– from Isabella Rossen, Amsterdam, 11.05.2020
A postcard from a retreat: Usually this would imply a card sent from a location far away from the hustle and bustle of our “everyday life”. People …
A reward for resilience
– from Julian Dobson, Sheffield, 19.05.2020
My weekend run usually takes me west from my home, away from suburban Sheffield to the moorland that gives rise to the city’s tumbling streams and …
Pandemic (post-)politics
– from Friederike Landau, Berlin/Vancouver, 19.05.2020
is the pandemic infecting us with post-politics
or how long has this virus in politics lingered
is passivity or printing money the winning face …
The spontaneity of the lights
– from Taher Abdel-Ghani, Cairo, 20.05.2020
I was invited for a break-of-a-fast meal (Iftar) on the rooftop of a friend of mine. We did not have a table, but we used the reinforced concrete c…
Open spaces or cubicles?
– from Nataliya Sukhova (Transstruktura architects) and Anton (10 Years old), Berlin, 20.05.2020
In the past few months I shared my home office with my son’s home school. One day we drew a couple of pictures together that illustrated our ideas …
The fearless city
– from Ramin Rahman, Kabul, 23.05.2020
My name is Ramin Rahman. I am a freelance photographer in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan. After one and a half months of quarantine, I left home fo…
Could workplaces give space to schools?
– from Arnav Prakash, Kolkata, 25.05.2020
The education fragility of marginals has always been a challenging issue for any state. The developing nations have an extreme shortage of resource…
Thinking the city through COVID-19
– from Xenia Kokoula, Berlin, 26.05.2020
In March 2020 work and everyday life was suspended, put on hold for millions of people. Suddenly confined within their homes, in front of their ske…